Sudoku Surprise!

This was the awesome reaction we got from Jane and Gilbert (Jonathan's parents) when we gave them a Sudoku toilet paper roll we had ordered from England! It was such a hysterical moment!! 

Merry Christmas from Mt. Juliet---#1

Merry Christmas from Mt. Juliet!! We have been here in the Nashville area since Wednesday and we will be leaving the day after Christmas and head to Kentucky. We have had a blast here with so many babies and kids running around! We have enjoyed scrapbooking, cooking many things (including extraordinary sweet potato casserole!), playing mafia, singing Christmas carols, and opening presents!! We have had four different celebrations....so we are very exhausted!









This is Jonathan's parents, Gilbert and Jane.



This is Andrew, Jonathan's youngest brother and his girlfriend, Ashley. 

Merry Christmas from Mt. Juliet--#2

This is my sister Johnna who is married to Jonathan's brother Aaron. This is their sweet baby, Catherine!












This is Jonathan's older brother Matthew and his wife Melanie. They have three children: Will, Alex, and Sophie.









This is Jonathan's younger brother Adam and his wife Melanie. (Yes, another Melanie!) They have a daughter named Grace Ann.











This is Daniel another one of Jonathan's younger brothers and his wife Christy. They adopted Hannah in February!!



What a sweet family we have!!!!!!!!!! 

Our Graph-Paper Floor Plan

I'm not sure if you can even see this or not....but this is a picture of the floor plan we drew and gave to the architectural draftsman. 

Merry Christmas--2006!!

I'm sure you all recognize this picuture from our Christmas card this year. We are standing on our 2-acre lot in Mississippi--Our future homesite in 2007!

Below are some great Christmas pictures of Andrew, Keri, and the girls......They are very fortunate to have a live-in photographer!!
We are in Mt. Juliet right now spending Christmas with Jonathan's family. Since we have DSL here, I will hopefully be blogging Christmas pictures as we make them! That will be fun for you hopefully!! I know it gets frustrating to wait on me to update this blog! (I can tell you that it is much more frustrating trying to update it on dial-up!!)

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!! 

An Ode to the Smiths!

Just wanted to take a moment to say how blessed we feel to be able to live with this sweet family!! Andrew, Keri, Lizzie, Anna, and Sara Kate are 5 of the craziest, funniest, and kindest people we know!! Since we have moved to their home, we have had WAY too much fun, eaten WAY too much food, and have laughed WAY too much! (Is that possible??)
We feel so blessed to be able to live with such dear, dear friends!! There is rarely a dull moment!! (Jonathan and I are certainly over-stimulated!!)

These are pictures taken during a visit to my family farm in Kentucky during our fall break in October.
Luke is in that last picuture!! He loved those girls!! 

Okay--We have changed our minds!!

On one lovely Sunday afternoon in November, Jonathan and I were driving home from my family's farm in Kentucky when we decided to stop for gas in the nearest little town--Mayfield. Getting off at the exit, I remembered that there was a pretty subdivision not too far away that had a house in it that we had loved to drive by earlier in our marriage. This house was featured in Southern Living when I was in college. We had loved it then, and I really couldn't remember what it looked like. Then we saw it. We gasped!
The house was for sale, so when we arrived back in Memphis, Jonny hopped online and found the listing. We found out that it was actually a Southern Living Home and viewed the floor plan. Initially the floor plan did not interest us. But seven sheets of graph paper later, we had sketched out a floor plan that we liked better than the first house we had loved!






Last Saturday we took our graph paper plans to an architectural draftsman. We hope to have blueprints in our hands by mid-January. This will propel us toward our goal of beginning the building process in March!

Yipee!! 

Jonathan and Andrew

Here are the two of the 6 people that I live with---and this is what they do during every spare second.....STUDY! Andrew and Jonny studied in Birmingham when they were in seminary together at Beeson, they studied when we came to visit from Chicago, and now that we live together, it is even more convenient to study!! Both are always studying for the classes they teach at Westminster---Jonny teaches theology, New Testament, Old Testament, and Greek. I'm not completely sure what Andrew teaches---but I know it includes rhetoric and theolgy II. He is also the senior grade advisor.

Both guys are studying for comprehensive exams too! Andrew is finishing up his second masters (he has a masters of divinity from Beeson and now he's working on his masters in philosophy at the University of Memphis). Andrew takes his last comp in December, and Jonny is planning on taking his last comp in June or July (depends when they offer them).

In any spare time, they chop wood, smoke meat, grill anything, roast coffee, lay hardwood floors for their neighbors, chase Jack the pony, lug our scrapbook stuff around, and do just about anything Keri and I tell them (ask them) to do!!

Go Grizzlies!!

Jonathan and I got to go to the Grizzlies game on November 7th when they played the Houston Rockets. We had great seats, thanks to one of my studnets whose Dad works for the Grizzlies.

We had a great time---and we got to go "back stage" and see our school's choir who sang the national anthem! (And, I may say, they did an EXCELLENT job!!)


The Grizzlies lost....but it really didn't matter! It was so fun anyway!
 

Our Land in Mississippi

Here is our land that we own in Mississippi. It is a 2-acre lot with plenty of trees lining the back! We have not begun building yet--but we are meeting with our builder this Wednesday. Maybe we will begin in the Spring. We are still trying to decide how much we need to save up in order to have a manageable mortgage. Jonathan has been "blazing a trail" through our wooded area so that we can reach our lot from Keri and Andrew's house. He has also been marking pretty trees (while they still have their leaves)and trees we might want to transplant from the back of our land to the front of our land.He is very excited about owning land!


This is the house in a subdivision we saw and fell in love with way back in March. When we first saw this house, it was just framed out. We realized then that we loved the floorplan, and when we came back in April, we saw the drywalled rooms and got a good feel for the size.

This picuture was taken back in May--which was when we contacted the builder and asked him if he would build this same house (with a few changes) on our land. He came to visit our land and said it was a great place to build this house.
This is just another view of that same house. It is a Donald Gardner house--We have seen many of his designs on the internet and loved many of them!!

This house is a 3-bedroom 1500 sq. foot house. (This particular house was built to only be a ranch with some attic space.) When we build it, we plan to make the upstairs expandable--We won't finish it now, but we want to make it accessible for future use.
 

Funny Farm

Here are some shots of our trip to our farm in Kentucky in October. Keri, Andrew and the girls came up for a fun little vacation.....(and cheap too!) We had great weather!!

Aaron (Jonny's brother) and Johnna (my sister) and their sweet baby, Catherine! We were outside making s'mores and warming ourselves by the huge bonfire!
Here is Aunt Ju Ju and Uncle Jonny.......we were having a great time outside with our family and friends.

We also went out and climbed on the hay! Uncle Jonny was jumping off of the big round hay bales and making all the kids laugh and laugh!! 

My Sweet Class

Here is my sweet class---all 12 of them!! I only have 5 boys and 7 girls!! We have a great time together every day!! They have me for every subject--so pray that they do not get sick of me!!

Pride and Prejudice

My new and precious friend, Ann Correll--a 5th grade teacher here at WA, introduced me to Pride & Prejudice! I have been over to her house 4 times for a "playdate" to watch the 5-hour BBC production of this movie. I am now reading the book--which is almost word-for-word with the movie!! It is so great!

I have watched this movie twice now!! Keri and Jonathan watched it with me--they both loved it too!!

Anyway, sisters, I am bringing it this weekend.......we don't have to watch it, but I am bringing it!! If you have not seen it, I think you will like it! If you have already seen it, I am MAD AT YOU for not telling me how interesting this story is!! I have not seen the new version yet--I bet some of you have seen that one. I think it is quite shorter and more "Americanized" (which might not be all bad!!).

Love you lots!

Julie

Happy November!!

Whew!! Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything on this blog!! We have been having a great autumn! We have been home to Kentucky--and the Smiths came too!! We had a great time making s'mores over the bonfire, feeding baby calves, climbing on the haystacks, playing baseball in the front yard, and eating WELL!! Lizzie and Anna (and Sara Kate) had a great time!!

I have been blessed with tons of work, 12 great kids in my class, and a huge family of 7 (Smiths + Davises) to keep me busy!! In school we are reading the book, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson. On Monday, we had the parents come in, dressed up in pirate garb, to kidnap their students!!! There were a lot of "ARRRRRRRGS" and the kids were blindfolded, shoved into cars, and taken to a local breakfast place for a treat! It was hysterical!! For my former students, you will be glad to know that this week we are hatching butterflies AND playing LOST TRIBE!! How fun is that???!!! We also started the WRITING PROCESS last week!! All of this fun stuff makes me miss my "Chicago babies!!" I especially missed you when I pulled out the Lost Tribe materials and saw your team names from last year: The Hummer Hunters, The Slick Snakes, etc....

Last night Jonny and I went to a Memphis Grizzlies game!! I have a student who gave us her season tickets for last night......It was a special night because 5 of my 12 students sang the national anthem with our school's choir!! It was such a treat to be there and see them! (and we saw lots of other interesting things....Like Yao Ming!! Man!!! He is so tall-- 7 '6"!) The Grizzlies lost, but I hardly noticed!! It was so much fun!

This weekend we are heading to Kentucky again----This time to see Joann! She isn't able to come for Thanksgiving or Christmas---(she will be coming in after Christmas for New Year's) ---so we are all coming in this week to see the Marlow gang!! I can't wait to see Austin walk!!
We will get in late Friday and then leave after church on Sunday. Maybe I will see you at church, Robbin. (Jonny said he thought he saw you the last time we were in---but you all were headed over to the other building!)

I have pictures I wanted to upload of school, the farm, the Grizzlies, etc....But this computer I am on will just not let me do it! So, hopefully soon there will be more pictures!!

Love to you all!!

Love,
Julie

Happy Birthday, Will!!

Happy 6th Birthday, Will Davis!! Will is the special boy that made us OFFICIALLY Uncle Jonny and Aunt JuJu 6 years ago!! He is the oldest son on Jonny's older brother, Matthew and his wife, Melanie. They also have two more kiddos, Alexandra and Sophie!

Jonny and I drove to Alabama on Friday night so we could attend the big Saturday Bash at Chuck E. Cheese. We spent the night with Johnna (my sister) and her husband, Aaron (Jonny's brother). Yes--it can get complicated! Jonny's other brother, Andrew and Daniel also spent the night that night! (And of course, Daniel's wife, Christy, and baby, Hannah came too!!)


Here we see Matthew beating Jonny at a crazy driving video game. Their dad proudly looks on!
Alex is a great big sister to Sophie!!
My sister Johnna paid absolutely no attention to anyone else all day long---just her sweet baby Catherine!! Can you blame her?? She is SO BLESSED to have her Aunt JuJu be on BOTH sides of her family!!!